As far as we know we’re one of the few people ever to have reviewed Global Defence Force for the PlayStation 2. Discovering such a well hidden gem became one of our proudest moments, especially when its UK sales began to spike afterwards. Already a minor hit in Japan, the game earned a slightly disappointing Xbox 360 sequel as the series was rebranded as Earth Defense Force in the West. And now it’s received the final honour/insult: an American made spin-off.

The whole series began in 2003 as Chikyu Boueigun on the PlayStation 2 – released in continental Europe, but not the UK, as Monster Attack. The sequel was what we know as Global Defence Force, with both games originally being part of the Japanese Simple 2000 series of original budget games.

All of the original games were by little known Japanese developer Sandlot, who are apparently working on an official Earth Defense Forces 4. Insect Armageddon hails from American developer Vicious Cycle, whose uninspiring discography includes the likes of Eat Lead: The Return Of Matt Hazard and Despicable Me: The Game.

Vicious Cycle’s approach isn’t very different to Sandlot’s though and this is more or less a restatement of the previous games. Although there doesnât seem to be any official license in use the EDF (as the soldiers love to refer to themselves as) are the guys in the tanks always trying to stop Godzilla in the original Toho movies. In this game though the big G isnât around and you have to fight off alien invaders obsessed by giant-sized terrestrial insects and arachnids.

The first positive move the game makes, apart from being ‘only’ £30, is giving you a choice of four different soldiers to play as – including an equivalent of the jetpack-sporting PaleWing so inexplicably missing from Earth Defense Force 2017 on the Xbox 360.

Whichever one you choose though the game plays more or less the same: as a third person shooter faintly reminiscent of the on-foot sections of Lost Planet. The controls, particularly for the vehicles, are much better than previous games in the series, and now very similar to Saints Row, although immediately this drains the game of some of its idiosyncrasy.

Despite its low tech feel and obvious lack of budget the original featured huge levels, which were completely destructible down to the biggest skyscrapers. Not only that but they were filled with either colossal Godzilla-sized enemies or hundreds of smaller insects, robots or spaceships. In many cases it was all of the above.

It often resulted in farcical levels of slowdown but that was a price more than worth paying for the bizarre spectacle of it all. But Insect Armageddon never reaches quite that level of outrageous action. There are certainly a lot of enemies on screen (and still some slowdown) but never quite so many that you feel as overwhelmed, or overawed, as before.

The basic combat isn’t as good either, with twitchy controls that never feel right no matter how much you adjust the sensitivity. There’s also a horrible new reload feature stolen from Gears Of War, that tries to make you time your button presses to reload more quickly. It completely misses the point of the original feature though, and instead of rewarding skill it seeks to punish a lack of it.

But the whole game seems to miss the point, with nothing like the charm or devil may care attitude of the original. It’s simply no fun, which is a very hard concept to quantify but one clearly missing from the moment you start playing.

Even something as seemingly simple as the length of a level is pitched wrong. Where previously you played through 50+ fairly short and sweet experiences, here the missions last far longer than your patience and there are only 15 of them. This may have been meant as compensation for the fact that there’s a lot less variety in the backdrops now, with everything happening in ‘New Detroit’ – which looks an awful lot less interesting than RoboCop made it seem.

As before there are hundreds of different weapons to find in the game (inexplicably dropped by the various monsters) and you can now level up each soldier to unlock new abilities or improved attributes. Which is another way of saying that the jetpack guy is all but useless until you level him up, which takes absolutely ages.

Where the game does succeed is in the co-operative options, which are the best in the series so far. You can have two-player split screen like the old games, or three players online – as well as up to six in a new survival style mode. It’s this that saves the game from complete disaster, especially if you can convince someone to sit and play it with you on the same console.

It really doesn’t matter that the graphics are poor (in many ways, particularly art design, worse than 2017) and the physics unconvincing, in fact it wouldn’t feel like an Earth Defense Force game if that wasn’t the case.

The difference between this and the other games is that they were aspiring to be something better than their budget would allow. Insect Armageddon is no more than it first appears: a cheap, unambitious cash-in that is bound to do the series more harm than good.

In Short:Horribly disappointing spin-off that replicates the formula but not the soul of the low budget rentakill shooter.Pros:The basics of the original game are still there and the larger range of soldier types and abilities is welcome. Decent range of co-op options.

Cons:Simplistic, repetitive combat that lacks the scale and sheer insanity of the earlier games. Annoying reload system and unwanted new level-grinding.Score:4/10